Don't get me wrong, I like 16 players, its fun, fast, furious and puts in a lot of competitive aspects that make the team based shooters a lot of fun. However, I do feel that there are significant issues that increase because the server is public and it causes more frustration then it needs to be.

In an 16 player server, it definitely shows that whatever you do in the game has a greater effect in the outcome of the match. This makes actions and killings definitely feel more rewarding because you're under pressure to do a lot of significant actions for your team because of the lower player count. Less players, the more effort you have to put into the help win the team. In other words, lower players, more rewarding with actual effort from an individual. Certain players like it because with lower player counts you won't get mobbed by players as easily and it makes it much easier for players to engage in individual 1 on 1 battles which many players like experiencing this. This is great in theory. However this is definitely an idealistic view if it was in an organized 16 player highlander team.

Sadly this is the internet and players just want to have fun, fool around and do things on their own without accept criticisms or feedback. Now I am not saying their actions are wrong but in most cases it does not help their team. For example, player A builds a sentry right outside of an intel room however the intel room has multiple ways of getting in and the engineer builds in a spot where the enemy player can get into the room and steal the intel without ever meeting the sentry because of the way the map designed. Because of this, when a teammate criticizes or tells that engineer player that he should build in the intel room, his response would be typically be insulting the critic. While this does happen in other servers, in a lower player count environment, the consequences are significantly huge. One person's screw up can damage the entire team's performance. In a 24 player server, this occurrence does not happen often and because of this, your actions do have consequences but it does not affect the team as much as a 16 player environment. So players who just want to lay back a bit and just melee only won't affect their team significantly.

Another issue with 16 player server is team stacking. Yes I know team stacking can happen in 24 players but the chances of it happening are significantly less than in an 16 player environment. For months, whenever I join Nom main, I always click autojoin once I finally loaded the game however even after 60 seconds of waiting for players, I notice many players still stay in spectate. The reason? They don't want to join a team with non regulars and they want to join a team with good players. For example, what they do is when they finally connect to the server and they reached the team select screen, they hold the tab button. This brings up the scoreboard and they can see who is joining a team. Because of this when they see certain players joining a team, they let go of the tab button and start spamming the button for the team they want to join. I did some experimenting with this in nom main and I have observed this happening. 5 blu, 4 red, 8 guys still in spectate during the setup time. I joined the red team 5:5 and then instantly a person joins blu. Not an autojoin but a join and then another 10 seconds of setup and not one person wants to join red. I have experienced this many times. Because its a lower players, it is much easier to team stack then say a 12 player team because in most cases it is evenly distributed. Now I am not saying that this will take away team stacking but this will alleviate this issue significantly. More players means less team stacking problems. I don't see this happen often in nom main when it was 32 player.

Heavies. We love heavies. We want to use heavies. However ever since the 119 update, Valve had decided to buff him to the point where you cannot even kill him in a 6 vs 6 environment. In a 9vs9 environment, 1 heavy is fine however 2 heavies and up it creates a significant problem. The reason they buffed the heavy was because newer weapons made him harder to use and Valve had no choice but to buff him. However this buff was only tested in a 24 player enivironment and not in 16 players. With more players like in 12 vs 12, heavies don't pose as much as a threat because more players = more aware of heavies presence and therefore it is much easier to kill him. Personally I would not mind 2 or more heavies in a 9vs9 environment before the 119 update. But because of this significant change they did to him, he has become a power horse. I understand he is meant to be the tank of TF2 but in a lower player environment it is not fun to experience because he creates significant damage to point where even the worse player in the world can destroy an entire team with him.

I love nom and I definitely love the community however the 16 player server has definitely caused a toll on my behavior and some other players in this environment. I started feeling more aggressive, more competitive and overall, my attitude has become more negative. Yes I know I've been a negative nancy of nom but overall I feel that the 16 player environment is causing a significant problem for some us in our attitudes and psychological actions. A significant number of my nom friends who used to play on nom stopped playing because they felt the sever has come to the point where in an 16 player environment, players are becoming very cocky and too competitive (I am not counting the ones that are in school or have jobs right now). I understand the reason we made it 16 players to begin with is so that regulars can come back to Nom main and use the reserved slots to play with each other but I feel this is not working as not every regular can play everyday. I know with 24 players, the reserved slots feel or seem less significant because we're left with 8 reserved slots in the server instead of say 14 reserved player slot.

Overall, I am just not finding 16 players fun anymore. Don't get me wrong I love the Nom community as a whole but the 16 player environment has definitely changed my attitude and some of my online friend's way of playing the game. I found more flaws and significant issues occur more often in an 16 player environment then a 24 player server. I admit myself that I do like playing in 16 player servers however only in an organized 16 player match that is evently distributed and sadly no matter how much we love nom main, that server is still a public server. Therefore it needs to be converted back into a pub server environment. When it was 32 players it was too much because TF2 was not designed for a 32 player environment however 24 players feels like it is right balanced. 16 players while is fun this cannot be held true for a public server. At this point, I feel it's the right step to change Nom main back to 24 players instead of keeping it at 16 players. Don't get me wrong I love playing with you guys but I just find the teams, player's attitude and the community just works better with 24 players. I know this suggestion won't get passed and this is almost a year and an half old since the change but this is what I am feeling right now.

TL;DR Convert the Nom Main Player Count Server from 16 players to 24. Maybe even 22 players.

`It also opens the server a bit for new people, cause imho the server could use some new fresh blood.Main is usually empty, but as soon the first regulars start dripping in, it changes into a fun clubhouse with a "Sorry, we are full" sign on the door in a few minutes.

Main is usually empty, but as soon the first regulars start dripping in, it changes into a fun clubhouse with a "Sorry, we are full" sign on the door in a few minutes.

I agree with King, but this is the biggest issue to me. There's barely any in and out of new people just because the only active server is usually overflowing with regulars. I remember we changed Bacon and Eggs to 24-man servers because main was supposed to turn into the regulars' safe haven, but most pubbers don't even know bacon and eggs exist from what I gather.

It also creates a problem with skilled players, which nom does have a fair share of. And that's fine, that's great, but if too many of them are on one team, with a mere 8 vs 8 environment it simply makes it improbable, if not impossible, for one team to actually do anything in a match. Which will often have the next match or map with 5 people or more quitting in frusturation. More players creates more chaos which can make it a bit harder for something like that to happen. Reserved slots are neat and I know the reason for back to the lower limit was to allow more reserved slots in so that people with reserved slots weren't stuck waiting too, but it happens, I guess?

And then we'll go back to what happened when eggs was 16-man, Main empty/full of randoms, Eggs becoming the new Main.

As long as we keep a "safehouse" for the regulars, the other servers will mostly be ignored since everyone will just gather there and only there.Ocassional events of playing on Bacon/Eggs brings more players there... and when it's over everyone goes back to the "safehouse".

If the player count is changed, don't create a new safehouse, otherwise it will just be the same thing, if there's no plan of leaving the safehouse then keep it like it is.

Disclamer: I barely play TF2 anymore so any opinion is written on what I believe but not what actually may or may not be happening inside the server right now.

And then we'll go back to what happened when eggs was 16-man, Main empty/full of randoms, Eggs becoming the new Main.

As long as we keep a "safehouse" for the regulars, the other servers will mostly be ignored since everyone will just gather there and only there.Ocassional events of playing on Bacon/Eggs brings more players there... and when it's over everyone goes back to the "safehouse".

If the player count is changed, don't create a new safehouse, otherwise it will just be the same thing, if there's no plan of leaving the safehouse then keep it like it is.

Disclamer: I barely play TF2 anymore so any opinion is written on what I believe but not what actually may or may not be happening inside the server right now.

I see your point. Still, having 2/3 of the servers full of randoms isn't bad at all. We want activity. The point of the safe-house is to give regulars a place to hang out while the other servers are full of pubbers.

The problem lies in having our main server be the one that's turned into a premium members' club. We don't want newcomers looking at our front-most server and seeing that it's either completely empty or "21/17" anytime it's active. All that leads to is no one wanting to bother with us, which leads to no activity on the other servers, which leads to where we are now.

Well I think change is good. . .even if its back to the old ways. I get reminded about Ratty's idea of not exactly having a entirely exclusive membership to the server but having it be a middle point between totally open and totally closed and currently we may be to closed off to the general population that want to play on our servers and currently whenever someone whom may be new to TF2 comes along they encounter 2 very frustrating events which is a thorough curb stomp from a 'A team' and not being able to come into the server itself due to a low public player count and being locked out unless people hop out and back in to let them in. Hopefully having 24 players total rather then 16 or whatever the current count is will lead to a more even game but I do not think it will erase the problem entirely, there are people who can currently clear a team by themselves while not being a heavy or being pocketed but it could make it more difficult.

Perhaps we should try a pilot test to 24 players to see if this changes anything, I do not feel like we'll have the alternate servers as a safe haven if keep them at 24 slots as well and just try to keep all the servers the same player count, and if theres some specific event that we only want regulars for there is always the option for a server admin to put a password on it for an evening.

I see your point. Still, having 2/3 of the servers full of randoms isn't bad at all. We want activity. The point of the safe-house is to give regulars a place to hang out while the other servers are full of pubbers.

The problem lies in having our main server be the one that's turned into a premium members' club. We don't want newcomers looking at our front-most server and seeing that it's either completely empty or "21/17" anytime it's active. All that leads to is no one wanting to bother with us, which leads to no activity on the other servers, which leads to where we are now.

But that's the thing, regulars go where admins/slot holders go and those 2 groups don't go out of the safehouse, leaving the other 2 servers nearly empty.We want activity but we don't want to leave the safehouse, that's the main problem.If we keep a server as a safehouse then nothing is going to change, Main will get more attention for a while and then everyone will leave it when they notice all the "cool kids" are hanging inside the new safehouse and the activity will loldie again. Like Cloud said, the idea is not to repeat history (unless we want the same results).

Well I think change is good. . .even if its back to the old ways. I get reminded about Ratty's idea of not exactly having a entirely exclusive membership to the server but having it be a middle point between totally open and totally closed and currently we may be to closed off to the general population that want to play on our servers and currently whenever someone whom may be new to TF2 comes along they encounter 2 very frustrating events which is a thorough curb stomp from a 'A team' and not being able to come into the server itself due to a low public player count and being locked out unless people hop out and back in to let them in. Hopefully having 24 players total rather then 16 or whatever the current count is will lead to a more even game but I do not think it will erase the problem entirely, there are people who can currently clear a team by themselves while not being a heavy or being pocketed but it could make it more difficult.

Perhaps we should try a pilot test to 24 players to see if this changes anything, I do not feel like we'll have the alternate servers as a safe haven if keep them at 24 slots as well and just try to keep all the servers the same player count, and if theres some specific event that we only want regulars for there is always the option for a server admin to put a password on it for an evening.

at first I didn't like the idea but you do address a lot of points that I have much concerns with. it's pretty easy to see if it's going to be a pubstomp or not just by looking at the player list. Maybe increasing the player count will make this go away as well as the double heavy problem. Now I endorse this idea 100%

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As much as I love 16 players I have been getting more passive aggressive towards people (You fucking idiot learn some god damn sentry placement in my mind), plus more valid points. If it does go up it'd be nice to be 22 player. However I can't help but feel that if we do higher it, then the server will become more so a 24+ player environment due to reserve slots + randoms. A pilot test is a great idea as well.

As a 16 player server, there's little room for new players, but it allows more room for regulars and admins to go have their fun. The only real time that new players are able to enter Main is when it's empty. This also has the higher chance of outright emptying the server when a pack of six may decide to go MvM or something like that. People will think "Oh hey, server's dying down today, guess we'll go somewhere else for now."

As a 24 player server, there's more room for the new players, while we still have a good amount of regulars and admins, as well as the slots for those players intact. The chances of new blood that could be new reserved players or new blood that likes to spout out obscenities are the same, and of course admins can determine the right and wrong. Overall, more players going in, (hopefully) less players going out.

Personally, all I have to say about new people is that if they play and they don't cause much of a fuss (funny fuss is good, annoying fuss is not), then I'm completely fine with it. Although there is a soft spot in my heart that is towards squeak-faced squeaks that tend to not know when to get quiet on the mic. That normally calls for a spanking.

Anyway, my point is that I would approve the testing of a 24-slot server and see where it goes from there.

EDIT: Actually, to put it into a (probably) better way to understand it, it's like this.

16-player is like an interview. There's very many people who want to join, but only a few people can try to get the slot at one time, and since the majority in the server are people who have reserved slots or admins, we can judge it as much as we want and see if they're good to join.

24-player is like an open house. Basically, we introduce all of the stuff we do to people, and they can choose whether to stay or leave for another place. Unless they're jerks, in which case, we escort them outside to a back alley and beat them up or something.

People don't like teamstacking. I know I don't.Auto join plugin., You can make admins immune. Plus with source mod I'm sure its easy to change teams to balance it.But im not sure if there are server commands to do this or if its a plugin (not sure if there is a better one). I'm to tired to search it myself.

Also to add, isn't eggs a MvM server. So it couldn't be the "safehouse", thus making 2 servers full if regulars were to retreat to bacon instead of going to main.

I was about to suggest the autojoin plugin, this server should have it by now since I seen countless stackings before even from us sometimes. 24 slot with the autojoin plugin sounds good. As Draythan said I don't play TF2 much anymore but this is what I believe.

I was about to suggest the autojoin plugin, this server should have it by now since I seen countless stackings before even from us sometimes. 24 slot with the autojoin plugin sounds good. As Draythan said I don't play TF2 much anymore but this is what I believe.

I would be fine with an auto join plug in I guess. I'll admit I'm guilty of going to one team over the other. I like playing with people I know, but at the same time lots of regulars or very good TF2 players on one team isn't that fun for anyone.

With the increase for the player cap, I'm up for testing it out for awhile. See what everyone thinks and draw a conclusion from there

I was skeptical at first, but after reading your post, which was very well thought out, I've come to agree with this.

The only thing I'm really worried about is a higher percentage of, well, jerks for lack of a better term. But there will be a better number of great people who can join as well. It might make getting a reserved slot feel like less of a reward, but that could be a good thing.

As far as the attitude of players goes, you bring up a very good point, I've felt like I've become much more arrogant than I was previously and that just isn't right.

So what the hell, let's test the waters for a week or two and see how this turns out.